Parkinson, white-faced and agitated, a thin, nervous figure in a coat too large for him, had been watching my approach up the drive, and held open the door for me.
“Ah, Doctor!” the old fellow gasped. “It’s terrible—terrible! To think that poor Miss Mary should die like that!”
“Tell me all about it,” I demanded, quickly. “Come!” and I led the way into the morning room.
“We don’t know anything about it, sir; it’s all a mystery,” the grey-faced old man replied. “When one of the housemaids went up to Miss Mary’s room at eight o’clock this morning to take her tea, as usual, she received no answer to her knock. Thinking she was asleep she returned half-an-hour later, only to find her absent, and that the bed had not been slept in. We told the mistress, never thinking that such an awful fate had befallen poor Miss Mary. Mistress was inclined to believe that she had gone off on some wild excursion somewhere, for of late she’s been in the habit of going away for a day or two without telling us. At first none of us dreamed that anything had happened, until, just before twelve o’clock, Reuben Dixon’s lad, who’d been out fishing, came up, shouting that poor Miss Mary was in the water under some bushes close to the stile that leads into Monk’s Wood. At first we couldn’t believe it; but, with the others, I flew down post-haste, and there she was, poor thing, under the surface, with her dress caught in the bushes that droop into the water. Her hat was gone, and her hair, unbound, floated out, waving with the current. We at once got a boat and took her out, but she was quite dead. Four men from the village carried her up here, and they’ve placed her in her own room.”
“The police know about it, of course?”
“Yes, we told old Jarvis, the constable. He’s sent a telegram to Oundle, I think.”
“And what doctor has seen her?”
“Doctor Govitt. He’s here now.”
“Ah! I must see him. He has examined the body, I suppose?”
“I expect so, sir. He’s been a long time in the room.”